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Audience

An audience is important to a media producer as they need to make sure they are meeting the audiences needs. Knowing who their audience is allows the media to cater and adapt their products or services in order to specifically please their audience. The audience also gives the media producers feedback which help the producers to know what they are doing right and what they need to improve on or change. Audiences will respond to media in different ways depending on their, age, gender and background. Different audiences will also look for different needs. Some of these needs may be: entertainment, information and education.

Target Audience

 A target audience is also important to the media producers as they are who the product is aimed at. If a target audience does not give good feedback or use the product at all then the media producer has failed at what they set out to do. It is very important for media producers to reach their specified target audience.

Defining the Audience

An audience can be defined by the products they consume. You are able to get a rough idea of the audience and their personality through the products they consume. Audiences can also be defined by the types of products they consume, for example something animated is more likely to have a younger audience, while this is not always the target audience it can still help us to define the audience through the type of products they consume.

The Mass Audiences and Niche Audiences

These two types of audiences are important as the media must know which type of audience their product should be aimed at. A product that is created through a gap in the market will most likely have a niche audience where as an already popular product will have a mass audience. Media producers need to know what type of audience they have in order to cater their marketing to that type of audience.

Occupation Groups

There are 6 occupation groups, ranging from ‘Well paid-professionals’ to ‘Students and the unemployed’. These occupation groups are used to define a media producer’s target audience. For example, if a media producer is to create a lengthy video game their target audience would be ‘Students an the unemployed’ as compared to the other groups this group has the most free time.

John Hartley’s 7 Areas if Classification

John Hartley suggests there are 7 socially grouped categories when identifying and defining and audience. These categories being: self, gender, age group, class, ethnicity, family and nation.

Audience Experiments and Theories

Hypodermic Needle Model

This model suggests that audiences to what they like through the media. So, the audience is not really choosing what they enjoy, rather the media is manipulating their audience to enjoy specific products made by the media. This model says that the media has control over peoples likes and dislikes which would make the media very powerful.

Bandura Bobo Doll Experiment

In 1961 Albert Bandura studied aggression. He created an experiment he would use on young children of ages 3 – 5. A child would be placed in a room with a bobo doll after watching an adult beat up the doll for 10 minutes. Every child copied the adult, what the children saw the children did. This experiment shows how children copy their adults and could show the reach of mass media, suggesting that children will do what they see in TV and movies.

Uses and Gratification Theory

The uses and gratification theory is the theory that the audience has complete control over what they want and don’t want to watch and purchase. This theory opposes the hypoderm needle model and suggests that the mass media does not have enough power to manipulate the audience’s interests. 

Cultivation Theory

Cultivation theory suggests that the audience choses media that reinforces their own beliefs. The theory argues audiences chose to watch media with their opinion which overtime reinforces their opinion even more. With this theory the mass media would have lots of control and power over their target audiences but only their target audiences.

Reception theory

The reception theory argues that the audience decide the message of the media. The theory says that media texts are encoded by creators and decoded by the audience. The media is interpreted in different ways by different people dependent on their backgrounds. This theory suggests the media does not have much power at all over their audience and is rather giving them the freedom to interpret the media how they chose.

Representation

 Representation is important in the media as it shows how majority and minority groups are being shown in the media. The representation of people in the media also affects the judgement and opinions of the audience. The media choses how they represent different groups and therefore choses what they went their audience to think of these groups. Some examples of media representations are: black men who are presented as either criminals or being good at sports and wealthy middle-class white men who are presented as successful but arrogant.

Representation Terminology

Stereotype

The main stream media holds up a set of generalisations about specified groups of people causing many stereotypes to be reinforced by the media. The media helps to reinforces stereotypes in order to push their personal agenda and to create negative or positive opinions around groups of people.

Archetype

 An archetype is someone who crystallises the view of a stereotyped group. The media uses archetypes to argue that their stereotyping is correct as an archetype will portray a perfect example of their stereotype.

Countertype

A countertype focuses on the positive representation of an often demonised group. The media may use this themselves in order to create a more positive representation of a group or it may be used against the media if they are demonising a group with unfair stereotypes.

Ideology

An ideology is the established thought process of the main stream media. The main stream media always aim to spread their ideology to the audience watching and do this through using stereotypes, archetypes and countertypes.

Representation Theories

Laura Mulvey and The Male Gaze

Mulvey is a feminist film scholar that argued that women in cinema are only there to look nice for men and be sexually submissive. Mulvey also argued that we usually see all events from a male perspective. The male gaze theory suggest that the media is full of patriarchy and that media producers are misogynistic as they only see women in media as objects. This theory also suggests that the media causes misogyny in its audience as it trains the audience to also view the female characters as objects.

Mary Ann Doane, the ‘Masquerade’ Theory

The ‘masquerade’ theory created by Doane argues that women show off their sexuality in an impowering way. This opposes Mulvey’s theory as it suggests that rather than women becoming objects for men they are showing off their sexuality in an impowering way. This theory suggests the media is not misogynistic but actually the opposite, allowing women to impower others.

Richard Dyer and The Representation of Men

 Dyer suggest that in the media men are not objectified and resist the gaze of the camera whereas women are objectified and have to look directly into the camera. Men in media will always be active and usually doing something to make themselves look strong. Dyer argues that this reinforces patriarchy in our society. This theory suggest that the media does not objectify men and reinforces patriarchy within our modern day society.